Chapter 49: Cloning Hobgoblins

As Alros woke up, he felt the two women beside him stir before they continue sleeping. He smiled at their sleeping form, especially at Alina, the marks from the ropes, whip and his hand remained on her beautiful body.

He already plan more masochistic play on the former captain, and even plan to buy more sex related items just for the occasion. However, for now, he need to make sure his plan to make the Adventure Guild send more members into the forest work.

He walked straight towards a set of equipment he never used before. It only find it use yesterday, when he get his hand on a more powerful monster. The hobgoblins.

In the system space, 5 remain inside while the other 10 had walked at the outskirts, leaving tracks and making it seem the hobgoblins began to have idea on the outskirts.

With such potential danger, there is no doubt that the Adventure Guild will send more C-rank adventurers. While he could not kill all of them, having his hobgoblins do so will be better.

But, he did not plan to lose such powerful monsters, especially with him not turning them into a demonic variant yet. But he still need to sacrifice some hobgoblins if he want to maintain the facade of hobgoblins threatening to come out of their previous area.

So, he went to the best thing, cloning the hobgoblins. Finally, the growth tube he never use before finally be used for something.

The reason he did not use it is one, the cloned product is usually weaker than the original, unless if one ready to sacrifice some LP to make do of their weakness. Two, the cloned product have limited lifespan, not in year's, but in months, maybe even days.

He likely able to offset such weakness in the future with better equipment and more experimentation, but both require funds and time and he did not have those yet, so he had to make due.

With the previous monsters he can clone are both goblins, wolves and slimes, there is no reason to do such thing, especially as his demonic variant have very little success in being cloned, even with the upgraded Growth Tube.

Even if he clone the normal variant and then used the Transmutation Magic Circle to turn it into a demonic variant, the chances of success lowered from 90 to a mere 40. With such risk, he did not plan to do so unless he need a lot of monsters and he had himself put in the corner.

Thankfully, his 10 Growth Tube now find it use, he was grateful he bought them before, and now having 10 hobgoblins slowly growing inside of it.

Different monsters have different growth time, depending on the grade of the Growth Tube. For low level one, it can only clone weak monsters like slimes, goblins and kobolds, with the first one taking an hour to clone, whole the latter 2 take 12 hours to do so.

As for the middle-grade one, it took a mere 1 minute to clone a slime, and one whole hour to clone a goblin. As for hobgoblins, it took an entire day, an acceptable time as it would allow him access to very powerful monsters in a short time.

The only weakness is the limited lifespan, but considering their fate is to be sacrifice, he did not mind the limited life span. The only thing he would have worried about before is the mana core but he manage to get one from the slimes and goblins so he assume the same is true with the cloned hobgoblins.

The other weakness is that he require essence from hobgoblins if he wanted to clone one. The more the better the success rate. But, considering he plan on turning all of them into the demonic variant, of he ever need one, he would not be able to get the sample needed.

To circumvent such weakness, his plan is to collect as many samples as he can. The side effect is that the hobgoblins become disgruntled from the treatment and become weaker as well.

The later is easy enough to solve, as he only need to put them in the Healing Magic Circle. As for the former, he gave them a lot of good food. It seem to work which make him glad, as if it did not work, he would have likely gave some of the women to the hobgoblins.

While the likelihood of such thing working is confirm, as the hobgoblins have the goblins lustful gene, it could cause some problems with the captive women, as they would object such thing. There is also the fact it would make the rest of the goblins wanted women for themselves.

Considering the very imbalanced ratio, and with how he would increase the number of goblins as time pass by, it would to serious issue. So, he did not plan on giving any woman to the goblins anytime soon.

If possible, he want to erase the lustful gene and turned them into a force that will obey him, while only needing food to buy their loyalty.

As he thought about it, the Growth Tube let out a hissing sound, the sign of the cloning process being completed.

He head towards the Growth Tube, as he received a notification.

< 10 Hobgoblins had finished being cloned. Release them from the Growth Tube?

Yes/No >

He pressed yes, watching as the hobgoblins exited the Growth Tube, growling before cowering, his demonic aura unleashed.

He subdue them, though he make sure to not mark them as it would cause some questions to be asked. After that, he quickly planned his move, namely going to the Adventure Guild and get another mission before heading towards the forest and take the not-cloned hobgoblins and send the cloned one to their death.

-x-

"There seem to be tracks of hobgoblins. But to think they will get so close? Why do you think it happened?" a veteran adventurer asked his fellow C-rankers. The two had been friends and so had team up to take the mission together.

However, they are not alone, as there are 10 other C-rankers, the guild offering a lot of money to check on the hobgoblins' incursion.

"No idea, but considering the Violet Maiden get annihilated, the hobgoblins likely have trouble, as they would have captured them instead of killing them," the other C-rankers said. The first one nodded, after all, goblins' lustful nature is known by everyone who did not live in a cave.